America!

hey all,

Back in America. I'm just realizing that not all Americans are loud, but just Americans that everyone remembers seeing abroad, such as Brian, who drew more than his fair share of stares because he doesn't know how to modulate his speaking voice.

The flight was really...unique. We signed in under a special system, and didn't even have tickets until about 2 minutes before we got on the plane, and sat down in our business class seats. The service was quite good, if a little brusque, and the food was excellent.

More later, as I have not slept more than 10 minutes since waking up...36? 48? hours ago? Not sure at this point, but I seem to have hit a second, or third wind.

Cheers,

Bon Voyage

hey all,

In less than 24 hours now, Bri, Michi, and I will be on a flight to the US. Out trip to Kyoto went pretty well, and so have our smaller trips to more local locales.

That's it for now. Hope to see some of you stateside.

Cheers,

Soon, Kyoto

hey all,

Finally finished my work year of 2010. Been able to hang out with Brian a little after work each day, and of course we're heading off to Kyoto soon.

More in a few days.

Cheers,

Meet-Up

hey all,

So the meet up went really well. That's about all I have right now as I have to get ready for class tomorrow.

Cheers,

Oh Me, Oh My

hey all,

As I said, things are picking up. In less than 24 hours, Bri comes to Japan, and he'll have to mostly fend for himself for 3 days before I get off of work. I plan on meeting him and doing dinner, but getting from the airport to the hotel is on him, and then while I'm at work of course he's on his own.

And then we run around like orcs with our heads cut off for a few days before coming to the US. The US will be even busier because the time is shorter, but somehow we'll manage.

There is still some shopping to do, both that Michi has been assigned and that I've been assigned, and there are train tickets to reserve for Kyoto, I just sent my climbing shoes in to be resoled (at a really amazing climbing shop, BTW), just paid my health insurance, will be paying my rent soon, etc. Luckily, by the time my next residence tax payment is due I'll have been paid again.

I'm going to call it a night and try to sleep. I really hope everything goes smoothly, but we'll see. Already, one element of our plan has gone awry: I wasn't able to book tickets at Studio Ghibli. It is a museum, but you need to order tickets in advance, and you can only enter the place at four specific hours each day, and every time slot was booked.

Hopefully I can survive this.

Cheers,

Yay!

hey all,

I was able to make it to the Immigration Bureau in Yokohama today. Boy is that place inconvenient! Every train and bus I had to take to get there, I had to wait about ten minutes for. It is supposed to only take about 30 minutes to get there, but it ended up taking an hour or so. It got to the point where I was worried I wouldn't be able to make it in time, but I got there with about 10 minutes to spare. And everyone I'd talked to about it was right. The place was mostly empty, and I only had to wait about 10 minutes in order to get my re-entry permit.

It was so quick in fact, that I was only about 5 minutes late for my PM class. I took over for the other teacher, and taught the rest of it.

My mood is much better. I've got a pretty good presentation, only a few rough spots, but I'm just going to leave it as is. I also signed a new contract for my company; I've been operating under a hand-written agreement until now, as both I and my boss sort of forgot about it and hadn't had time to straighten it out.

That's all for now.

Cheers,

Sanity

hey all,

So for the sake of my own sanity, I'm pulling the plug on the presentation. I wanted to incorporate all the pictures of my travels up until I actually returned to the US, but that will not be psychologically healthy at this point.

It has been eating up a large amount of my free time, and I need some down time to just relax. Especially after taking the JLPT, I've been hitting the Japanese like I should have been hitting it everyday before I took the test. And of course everything is gearing up for the holiday instead of gearing down, like it should.

I'm calling it finished as is, and from here on I'll get some free time before Bri arrives and all craziness breaks loose.

Cheers,

Multi-Pitch, No Teacher

hey all,

Just got back from Joyama again (every time I type that I'm reminded of "Yo mama" jokes...). Saturday we climbed several single pitch routes as a warm up for today's main serving of multi-pitch madness. We only got in one multi-pitch route: a 4P route called Battle Runner. We climbed it before together with our climbing instructor, and we waited for a long time to climb it today. We had to wait both at the bottom, since it was very crowded, and also about two pitches up, where a really annoying woman stopped us. She was terrible at rock climbing, constantly saying "oh! scary!" and had long, decorated nails. She had no business on a multi-pitch route, and yet there she was, blocking the way, slowing us down, and constantly getting afraid of something that ...I was about to write "isn't scary," but actually it can be. Still, I don't see many sane people walking around at night exclaiming "Wow, it's dark" for 10, 20, or 30 minute stretches. What is the point in that? Yes, rock climbing is scary. Get on with it, or get out of the way.

In any case, we got up and down without incident, and actually ran into our climbing instructor again as he was either climbing with some friends or instructing more students. I was able to tell him that we climbed the whole route without falling once, and also without resting or asking for tension. (At least I was able to. Michi has a ways to go yet.)

Although I'm feeling pretty worn out from shopping, coordinating trips, dealing with troubles at work, and the muscle/mental ache of climbing (especially multi-pitch gives me this feeling: we were separated from the ground from about 11:00 to 16:00, or 5 HOURS), it was a good weekend. Michi and I haven't had any of our huge "It's over!" fights recently, and we're probably getting better at feeling out the mood of the other. It helps that we can lose our tempers with each other, and then patch things up quickly and move on.

 One of the larger projects looming over my head is a presentation I'd like to give about my stay in Japan so far, but some of the features I'd like to do are a little tricky.

Cheers

$%^&* List

hey all,

So that new housemate turned out to be a real douche. He didn't have his visa yet, and I mentioned that I'd be heading over to the Immigration Bureau on Thursday to take care of my re-entry permit for Japan.

I arranged to have another teacher teach my evening class, and headed out to meet the guy. When I got back to the house, he was sleeping. He didn't have his papers organized, and hadn't printed out the most important document. When we went to the Seven Eleven to print it out, it didn't work, so we had to go back to the house to transfer the file to my USB stick. When we went to back to the Seven Eleven, instead of focusing on printing his documents out, he left that to me and bought some snacks.

By this point I wasn't sure we'd make it and called the bureau. It would take 35 minutes to get there and they would only be open for another 15.

Thanks to this punk who I went out of my way to help, I wasn't able to get my re-entry permit and almost inconvenienced another teacher (I made it back to work and taught the class myself, since I couldn't run my errand).

Other than that, the week has been pretty decent. Shopping for Christmas presents, studying a little Japanese, and doing a little site-seeing.

I've made arrangements to go to the bureau again next week, and Douchebag can find his own way there.

Cheers,

Test, Etc

hey all,

So the test was pretty touch and go. The first section was 35 questions within 30 minutes of vocabulary, and I quickly discovered that the words I had been studying and the set of words on the test, only overlapped a little. So I had basically been studying the wrong words, or really, not the wrong words, but more likely not enough words.

The second section was a reading comprehension section, and I feel I did pretty well on that. Mostly just checking details about the reading passages, selecting appropriate words/phrases to go in the blanks, etc.

The last section was listening, and that was also touch and go. Several parts of it made me feel that it was far too easy, but other parts I just had to guess because they never repeated any of it, and they never slowed down: they just spoke at normal speed. The actual real difficult part was when they had no answers. I mean, for the new test, they have parts of the listening section where your question sheet just has a blank page for you to take notes on: the question is asked verbally, the conversation is played, and the possible answers are listed verbally, and if you miss any of it, too bad.

I'm not sure whether I passed or not, but I'm leaning towards not at the moment.

The ramen museum was pretty interesting, and some of it was quite delicious. It is very cheap to get in, but if you want to eat any of the ramen served there, it can become quite expensive. They have about 10 different regional varieties of ramen to try, and even if you only try a small bowl of each, your wallet and stomach take a hit.

In other news, it appears that A Song of Ice and Fire will be coming to HBO next April. I just saw a 10 minute "Making Of" clip on the author's livejournal page, and it looks really amazing. The production values are through the roof, and the actors all look in top form. We'll have to wait and see whether the dialogue, action, and maturity of the books have been well translated into film. No news about the long-awaited volume five yet.

My cold is getting a little bit better, but there is still almost no time to rest. Next weekend Michi is insisting on going rock climbing again so that she doesn't forget how to multi-pitch climb. Not a bad idea, but it just means that I don't really get any days to just watch anime, play video games, go see local sites, or plain old sit around and do nothing. I'd rather have an interesting life than no life at all, but relaxing is important for my sanity.

I've been hanging out with the new housemate from the Midwest, and that has been really good. Since I've kinda gotten used to not being able to go anywhere and not having anyone besides Michi to go anywhere with, I've been missing out on seeing a lot of Japan. Since he moved in, I've gotten to see some of the local things around Yokohama that otherwise I wouldn't get to see.

Cheers,

This is Rest?

hey all,

Had a really busy weekend, what with coordinating and planning the trip home and Bri's trip to Japan, visiting the ramen museum with a new housemate, studying Japanese, and taking the JLPT.

So busy in fact, that that's it for now.

Cheers,

The Weekend, At Last

hey all,

So I've been fighting a cold for the better part of a month or two, and my voice is going, again. Thankfully it is the weekend, and I'll get to rest it. Although I get to rest my voice, I still have to take the JLPT on Sunday.

Seems to be one of those "you just have to let it run its course" things. Medicine makes it go away for a week, then it comes back worse than before.

That's all for now.

Cheers,

And...We're Back

hey all,

Sorry for the long gap there. Been really busy as usual of late. Classes are going pretty well. I'm starting to get the hang of teaching that younger class, and I've figured out how to make that afternoon class pretty fun while still covering the amount of material that I've been requested to cover.

Last weekend, I met up with Michi on Saturday, and then on Sunday I sold four games, and bought Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. Pretty good so far. I also met up with John, my Michigan buddy and we had a Thanksgiving lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe in Tokyo. I have to say they did a good job, and it was worth it for the price: only about 2600 Yen, or $30. You could get the same for much cheaper in the US, but again, we're in Japan. You can't even find turkey in the supermarket. I've actually never seen it anywhere, although John tells me they sell them at Costco.

I'm still studying Japanese for the test, but at this point it is a little late: I only have 4 days until the JLPT on Sunday. I'm probably going to head over to Tokyo a little early on Sunday to make sure I get there.

I've also been trying to arrange my trip to the US, plan for my friend's trip to Japan, gear shop for climbing, and I've been obsessed with a particular type of Japanese snack. It is basically deep fried burdock root, but I've been unable to find a recipe for it, and I've been unable to actually find the snack in a store so that I can look it up on the internet.

That's all for now,
Cheers,

Big Wall

hey all,

So the low down is this: you're climbing up a rock wall and you run out of rope, but there is still plenty of rock wall up above you. Instead of going back down like a semi-rational person (to be a rock climber you probably have to be a bit off your rocker), you let your climbing partner climb up to your position. And then you keep climbing until you run out of rope again and notice that there is still more rock above you, etc etc. This is big wall climbing or multi-pitch climbing, and Michi and I took our first lesson in it last weekend.

I guess there are several things to know about multi-pitch climbing. First is the general process as I outlined it above. Second is the details of it: who climbs first, and how does that climber make him/herself safe once he/she reaches an anchor point (what knots, what gear, and what techniques etc), and what kind of communication is necessary for multi-pitch climbing to work and be safe. Once you get to the end of the rock, you need to know how you and your partner can get down quickly and safely.

I wish this picture didn't make me look like a dufus, but you can see I'm wearing my helmet, and the backpack Michi just got me. I'm belaying for Michi, who is climbing up to my position.

So that is the gist of what we were taught. It consists of a process of checks, a knowledge of a few knots, a few terms to facilitate safety and good communication, and a lot of double checking and triple checking for safety hazards, for which knowledge of what a dangerous situation looks like is necessary.

Another slightly uncool picture. But you can see how high up we are.

Nice pic of Michi.

The video should give you some idea the scale involved. The guy dressed in yellow at the top of the wall is our teacher, and that is where we finished the climb. Mt. Joyama is about 340m tall, and the wall that we climbed is easily 120m, or almost 400ft.

Although the classes were done in Japanese, most of the climbing terms are English, so that was pretty easy. And I guess my Japanese has gotten good enough for me to understand safety and some climbing instructions. I really appreciate our teacher, a climber who has over 30 years of climbing experience all over the world, and has actually published articles in climbing magazines, such as Rock and Snow. (No joke: I've seen the articles.)

Cheers,

Lots

hey all,

Made it back from the multi-pitch climbing lesson safe and sound. As usual, a detailed account will have to wait a little bit. Suffice to say, it was pretty fun, and I think I learned a lot about how to climb multi-pitch routes safely, and got some good advice on climbing in general. Also a good refresher on climbing terminology. Climbing with foreigners whose vocabulary and listening ability is limited, you necessarily develop certain ways of saying things, but it is good to return to the real terms, which our instructor used.

I've got some insane pictures and some video that should give you an idea of the scale we're talking about, but even when I look at the rock face from 1km away, it is hard to believe that I've just climbed all the way up that face.

In other news, I have exactly 14 days until I take the JLPT, the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, and I'm a little nervous. There are still many kanji and words that I don't know that could be on the test, and I haven't figured out how to practice for the listening part. I know where the test location is, roughly, and I think I'm going to try to find my way there once before the test to make sure, but I think I'll just have to spend 30-40 minutes each day practicing and reviewing. As it is, there are some days, and yes sometimes a week or two will go by, when I don't read my Song of Ice and Fire in Japanese, or when I don't go to smart.fm to review.

Anyway, once again it has gotten late and I need to brush my teeth and tuck myself in.

Cheers,

610 Part 2

hey all,

The schedule is starting to pick up a bit at work. More lessons in the afternoon, and then I'm trying to teach myself origami so I can teach my students without needing their mom's help. The boss is pushing for introducing more words more quickly for my afternoon students, which means more and more reviewing, more and more practicing new words, etc.

Since they don't study at home much, they will probably forget many of the words they learn anyway, but if we introduce more words, we expose them to more and increase the chances that they can retain more words, whether they can remember exact meanings or not. At least that is the theory, but to me it seems like my fun class has become more than a little unfun.

Cheers for now,

610

hey all,

As of Tuesday, I'll have been in Japan for 610 days, or one year and 8 months.

I thought I'd share a silly story about lunch. As most of you probably have read here, I'm kind of a fan of Muji. They don't advertise (much...), their products are usually, well-built, simple, and convenient, and they also don't have brand names I don't care about plastered all over them. So when I wanted to by a lunch box, I went to Muji first. But the lunch box they were selling was too simple. It was just two interlocking plastic boxes with lids. If you wanted chopsticks, you had to buy them separately and the chopstick box was a different color and a different length than the lunch box. And if you wanted a band to attach the two together, that had to be bought separately, and if you wanted a bag to put everything in, that too had to be bought separately, all of it just didn't seem up to the usual Muji standard.

So I went to Don Quixote, which is one of the weirdest stores I've seen in Japan. I used to go shopping there sometimes when I lived in Tokyo, but they have the shops in most major cities and in Tokyo there was one for each major (and minor) shopping area.They are weird because of their selection of goods. They don't seem to sell cuts of meat, but you can buy eggs, tofu, cheese, milk, bread, snacks, juice, coffee, alcohol, etc. They also sell socks, underwear, shirts, suits, ties, etc. And they also do dishes, kitchen ware, appliances, weights for working out, make-up, toothpaste, shampoo, jewelry, etc. The strange thing is probably not the types of different merchandise that they sell, although they do sell some strange things, but rather the presentation and organization of it. For example, you can buy suits, work shirts, and business socks on one floor, and right next to that area without any separation is pastel elephant underwear...You can guess what is supposed to go in the trunk...

And all the regular clothes are mixed in with nurses outfits, Mrs. Santa outfits, school girl uniforms with too short skirts, etc. The food section is more or less normal, but the health and beauty section and the clothing sections can be a real eyeful if you're just wandering around.

Anyway, I went to the kitchen goods area, and immediately saw a lunch box: two matching interlocking boxes, which included chopsticks and had a special compartment to store them in. It came with a band to help keep everything together, an insulated bag to help maintain temperature, and two miniature ice packs to keep your lunch cold, should you so desire. And it was all the same price as the Muji lunch box by itself. How could Muji have dropped the ball so badly, I thought. Their notebooks are nice, I love their storage boxes for clothes and house goods, I have a pair of their house slippers, and 4 work shirts from their clothing line.Why couldn't they make a decent lunch box for a decent price? Why do I have to put up with a really nice lunch box that happens to say "We are passionate about lunch communication. The lunch is a good day pastime."

At any rate, the weekend was really fun. Michi made some ginger marinated pork with soup and salad, and a double or triple chocolate cake. The cake was really something of a work of art, but all of it was delicious. She also bought me a carabiner for my birthday...At least that's what I thought. The last time we went climbing, I dropped a carabiner and it rolled off into the woods and down a steep slope. It was almost the end of the climbing day, and I had barely been able to find Michi's shoes when she dropped them down the same slope earlier. There was little chance I'd be able to find the 'biner, so Michi said she'd buy me a new one, which she did. But she also secretly bought me a day bag: an 18L Osprey bag, with a built-in 3L hydration system including a drinking tube that hangs just below your mouth and with lots of pockets and straps and crannies to put stuff and a really nice reinforced back that allows air to flow through, instead of leaving your back a sweaty mess. I had been salivating over this bag for months, and I guess she noticed.

Instead of going to Kotakuji like we had originally planned, we decided to go to Tenno Iwa. I had gone there last year with Ayako and Tatcha when Michi was busy, so it was a first for her. For some reason, there was almost no one there, which was nice because there are not that many routes to climb. We did pretty well, but Michi fell twice and cut her shins a little on the second fall. The first fall could have been much worse, especially if she hadn't been wearing her new helmet. Now when we climb, we wear the helmets. I think I've been pretty lucky not to have busted my head open in this life yet, and I'm really starting to want to keep it that way.

Anyway, another day in the life of this English teacher, right?

Cheers,

In Sum

hey all,

I'd like to start by saying thanks to everyone who's taken a second to remember me on or near my birthday. Especially here in my relatively anti-social guesthouse, it helps to know that people are thinking about you.

The week has been busy and eventful to say the least. On Monday my boss watched one of my classes and was quite upset because the students weren't reacting to class: they couldn't remember what we had been studying, they couldn't do memorization, couldn't fill in the blanks, etc. Only one student could do anything at all. She was angry at me at first, but after talking to the students' mothers she discovered that only that one student and another student who was absent were studying at home. After that she said it wasn't my fault and to continue as I was. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were more or less regular days, but I've been busy after work cutting my hair, doing laundry, cooking for dinner and lunch, looking for a new lunch box and finding some origami paper, in addition to trying to study Japanese and keep in touch with Michi.

I now have a bike which has been a great help in making all these errands possible. It is only a mama-chari (a mom's style bike) but it is better than walking for 30 minutes just for groceries, work, or to get to the station.

Today has been an especially busy day. We had a teacher's meeting at 8:15AM to discuss our teaching materials, during which we kept noticing that one of our teachers still hadn't shown up. He apparently had a really bad stomach ache, and wanted to take the day off. From what I've heard him talk about during down time at work, it wouldn't surprise me if he was just hung over from drinking too much. Needless to say, the boss and the other teachers were all put out. It didn't affect my morning too much, but I had to cover 3 of his baby lessons in the afternoon. That wouldn't be too much of a problem, but I have a very demanding and challenging 1.5 hour long class from 5PM to 6:30PM which I need to be energetic for. The students are all very good elementary school students who come in from Monday to Friday to improve their English. They've all had to go through more than 6 hours of Japanese public school before they even come to my class, and I need to get them interested and excited about English in order for the class to go smoothly.

The boss had received a few complaints about my class being too loud or having bad attitude, but when she observed the class today she thanked me many times for teaching such a good class: for making it fun for the students, for making it challenging for them, for getting them to speak in class, etc. It was actually a little embarrassing, but it made me feel really good because I've been trying all sorts of different teaching styles and methods, and for each class the students have to try hard and be prepared for it if they want to do well in it. So basically, I've been trying really hard and I've gotten not only a pat on the head, but maybe a nod of respect and appreciation.

The weekend looks to be as eventful. Tomorrow I make a new housing contract and finally get to see Michi and celebrate my birthday. I guess she's making me a cake and dinner. Then Sunday, we're heading to Kotakuji again. We haven't been there in almost a year, so it should be pretty interesting. Michi says she's buying a rope tomorrow, so I won't have to carry mine, which is always the biggest pain in the butt. It is the heaviest part of my gear, and we can't go climbing outdoors without it. And then if we plan on lead climbing indoors, but decide to only do top rope once we get to the gym, I'll have carried my heavy rope around for no reason.

Next weekend, it looks like we've got a climbing lesson on how to multi-pitch, so that will be a busy weekend as well.

In short, I'm really busy and pretty happy at the moment and I don't think I could ask for too much more out of my situation.

Cheers,

BD

hey all,

Once again, it is my birthday in a few days. One of the presents I received was a DVD with over 1100 pics of yours truly. As I've looked through all of them several times now, I can't help but wonder: Should I apologize to my parents for the royal dick I must have been from age 12 to 17? And how did I manage to turn out the way I am now when I was such a cute baby? How will I keep myself from strangling my own offspring once they turn 12?

What was especially eerie was watching the ever-smiling face slowly disappear around 1993-1994 and almost never be captured on film again until around 1997. Yes, there were pictures of me smiling between 1993 and 1997, but they are few and far between the glowers, frowns, absent-minded/empty-eyed stares, hands blocking the camera, etc.

Back in the present, today was pretty fun. Michi and I went to Saitama to hang out with my Michigan friend. The situation was relatively interesting: me and John talking about gaijin problems, and Michi and Tomoko talking about the problems of dating gaijin.

Cheers,

First Pay

hey all,

So I've finished my week at work here, and the weekend is shaping up to be a busy one. Tomorrow is skype with the 'rents, gaming/catching up with a friend, and then meeting up with Michi. We're thinking of heading to a sports shop and picking up some gear, which I can now afford thanks to the paycheck. Sunday we're heading up to Saitama to do lunch with my Michigan buddy and his girlfriend.

The paycheck was pretty nice. Less than I can expect for a full month's work, since I missed the first week of October due to finishing up my contract with the previous company. But even for all that, almost the same as what I made full time last year, so a regular month should be quite impressive. There was even attached a little calculation sheet which broke everything down by class type and pay rate per class, which to be honest I hadn't even asked about before hand. So now at least I can compare my pay to what I have recorded in my personal spreadsheet. Not that I suspect anything, but in any average month, there are so many classes, scheduling changes, etc, that sometimes there is bound to be a minor mistake somewhere.

Cheers,

Week Day Holiday

hey all,

Today was a national holiday, which naturally resulted in a rock climbing trip to Yugawara.

Pretty good climbing. We got there around 8:30AM, and beat many other climbers to the spots, and went out of our way to find a couple out of the way locations that proved pretty fun.

I thought I'd comment briefly on the new job. It has been about one month, and it is going pretty well. The hours are a little long, but I'm slowly getting used to them. I've gotten some good feedback about some of my classes, and it appears that the parents, my boss, etc are satisfied. My first paycheck is coming up soon, so that will also be interesting.

One of the housemates who's leaving seems like he wants to give me his bike, so that will shorten my walking commute.

Cheers,

Whoohoo

hey all,

Very excellent weekend. I finished watching Shutter Island and chatted with a friend Saturday morning, and then headed up to Tokyo to meet up with Michi. We didn't see each other at all last weekend, as I worked on Saturday and we both had colds. So this weekend was the first time we'd gotten to spend more than 2 hours together in two weeks.

We made a decent dinner of vegetable soup and yakisoba (fried noodles), and talked about A Song of Ice and Fire,the first book of which she is now about half way through...This actually makes me really jealous. In English I can get through one of these books in a couple of days, given enough time to read each day. But it has taken me the better part of 5 months to get through the first book in Japanese, and she's gotten through half in about a month.

Anyway, we also got around to the topic of baby names, somehow. No, that's not a hint or clue, but especially with my economic situation seeming to improve it is a topic that's come up. The funny thing is that we came back to A Song of Ice and Fire for this as well: there are actual attested fans of the series who've named a son or daughter after a character from Mr. Martin's excellent fantasy series, and if I had a daughter, I couldn't think of a better name than Daenerys or Dany for short.


Today we went indoor rock climbing, as there was a typhoon yesterday and the weather was still not too great today. We both did pretty well. Michi has been going bouldering after work almost every night this month, and she even took a private lesson outdoors earlier , like I did when I first started climbing. She can now climb some 5.10a's and 5.10b's, but her reach is a little short and sometimes her weak left hand holds her back. Still, it took me 5 years to reach the 5.10a mark, so who am I judge? I didn't break any records, but I did a couple 5.10a's and 5.10b, and finished with two 5.10d's. I almost completed a third, but I smashed my knee trying to pull myself over the last ledge at the end, and that really took the fight out of me.

I've been watching talks on TED recently, and I thought I'd share two here.The first is really brilliant, and the second is pretty interesting.






Cheers,

Odd

hey all,

So the other day I had to do all those change-of-address errands, and I noticed that I've always lived in a room number with 3 in it. In Omiya I was in 103A, in Tokyo I was #3, and now I'm #203. What gives?

Cheers,

Busy busy

hey all,

I received the afternoon off, so after morning classes were over I bolted and started running errands. I updated my gaijin card, setup a mail forwarding system at the post office so my mail will be sent to my new address, and updated my address at the bank and at my phone company. I also managed to renew my national health insurance and make a trip to Tokyo to pick up the last of my stuff.

Eating my dinner now, and then it is to the showers and to bed.

Cheers,

Um

hey all,

So it has been an interesting weekend. As it happened, I wasn't supposed to work on Saturday after all, just like the schedule had showed me, but...That teacher who's wife just had a baby? The one I subbed for two weeks ago? Well, he had called in at 8:30AM saying he couldn't make it in because his wife had a fever and he had to look after the baby. When I showed up unannounced, everyone was breathing sighs of relief because it meant that they could actually do their classes and not have to make embarrassing explanations to their students/customers.

Anyway, I worked until about 5PM Saturday, and then went back to Tokyo and spent the night at the old place. The southern guy and I watched The League, and then I hit the sack. This morning was spent organizing and packing, and realizing that despite my intentions of carrying everything by myself (in only three trips), I would actually need help today, and that I'd still have several items left over even if I received help.

Just like my last move, I lured one of my friends into helping me with promises of free train fare and lunch. It went pretty smoothly, and now I've got two more plastic crates from Muji, my PS3 and monitor, plus my rack for drying clothes, etc. All that actually remains behind are a fifth of tequila, a wood pulp shelving unit, my blender, and an Asian style straw hat that is a souvenir for a friend.

Last night I also bought and started taking some cold medicine, and already I'm feeling much better. My cough and runny nose are still pretty bad, but I think in a couple days I'll be back to normal.

I think I'm going to study a bit, since I haven't had time to do much of that recently.

Cheers,

To Work, or Not To Work

hey all,

Been a long week, and it may not be over yet. As seems to happen pretty regularly, I get told one thing about the schedule, but when I check the printed version, there are changes. It seems that one of the secretaries in charge of doing the schedule is pretty new, plus there are two actually doing it, so there are changes that get made on day, only to be undone, or changed again by the other secretary the next.

So the short way to put it is that I don't know whether I'm actually working tomorrow. As I did on Monday, I'll go in tomorrow morning prepared to work and see if I'm needed. I sure could use a day off, though. I seem to have caught a second cold this season, and taking it easy would be great medicine. Of course, I still have to head back to my old room in Tokyo to pick up the last of my things, and doing that tomorrow would let me rest on Sunday.

I miss seeing and talking to Michi. We've been talking on the phone, but that isn't the same as being in a restaurant or sitting on a couch together, and I only saw her for a couple hours last weekend. It sounds as though she's caught a cold as well, so we might not be meeting this weekend at all, which is a depressing thought.

With the long hours, I haven't been able to keep up my study of Japanese as much as I'd have liked too, but I have managed to put in a little time.

Time to get ready for bed.

Cheers,

Work, Work, Work

hey all,

Been a busy week so far. I've been asked to do a 6 day work week schedule, but it seems like I might be able to switch to a 5 day if I start feeling pressured or stressed. Classes are going pretty well. I've started a daily grammar activity where I have the students conjugate verbs. I started this because my boss had the students do this for some simple, common verbs and they couldn't do it at all. Things like "Tonight I will eat a cake. Yesterday I ___  a cake. I have just ___ a cake," with "ate" and "eaten" in the blanks. We teach them complicated subjects like physics, tectonic plates, Baroque composers, etc, but somehow some simple things are not been taught/trained.

On top of the long week, the hours are also a bit long, but unlike my last job, if classes are done, or if I'm already prepared for my next classes, I'm allowed to take off (as long as I'm back in time if I still have a class later that day). It looks like they might be reducing the length of some of my days, as I'm working 6 days.

I ran into this on the internet today: a robot that sings and dances! The average Japanese pop singer can be said to have about the same personality as the robot, so think they should be worried about being automated out of their jobs.

That's all for now.
Cheers,

New Place

hey all,

So I moved a load of stuff over to the new place yesterday, and signed the contract, and made the first rent payment. That took up a bunch of time, and I spent even more time packing, transporting, and unpacking today. I've got all of my clothes and books and school materials here, but my monitor, PS3, rock climbing/camping gear, and some food items are still back in Tokyo.

I originally received tomorrow off, but then I was given Saturday off as well, and was told that my schedule would be set later on Saturday. Well, I still don't know exactly what's up, but I'm going to go in to work tomorrow anyway, as it is now so close. If I'm told to go home, I can update my address with the bank, phone company, post office, and city hall, and maybe bring down another load to the new place.

If my uploads worked, below should be two videos: one from rock climbing, and one of my new room.







Please excuse my enormous brain farts on simple vocabulary while introducing my room. Even in the US this happened to me a lot, but living in a foreign country will multiply the frequency and severity many times. I should also have noted the size of the room: there is ample designated storage space (every room has a little box) for food, shoes, etc outside of the rooms, so a lot of stuff that I had to keep in my room in Tokyo or Omiya, I can put elsewhere. But the room is so freaking BIG! My climbing gear will fill part of the closet, but there will still be empty space in there, and then the room itself will still be mostly empty.

The rent is higher, of course, but I'll be saving a lot of money by commuting by foot or bike to work. Plus, there are the intangibles: actually living in a room you can wave your arms about in without scraping your knuckles or pissing off the neighbors.

Cheers,

Assistant No More

hey all,

So I have finished my week of subbing. I get the impression that the mothers, students, and my coworkers and boss are generally pleased with me, at least they don't seem to be forming any lynch squads at the moment. My boss has commented that the students like me and like the efforts I'm making in class so far.

The hardest part has again been the private/semiprivate lessons in the afternoon, because every day there are different students learning different material with different levels of English, and it seems the teacher I subbed for was pretty good at organization, but certain materials would just turn up missing, or 30 minutes of my lesson prep time would vanish as I'd be asked to do a baby lesson suddenly. When I say baby lesson, I mean baby lesson: between 0 and 2 years old.

I'm trying to post a video from the rock climbing trip, but Blogger's servers seem to be finicky tonight.

I've been wondering whether I should technically start a new blog now that I'm not an ALT anymore. I'm still teaching English, but we're using science, math, history, etc to do that, and I'm not assisting anyone: I'm in charge of every class I do.

Cheers,

Time

hey all,

The rock climbing trip came off rather well. I'd love to post some more about it, but I'm exhausted. I'm going to try to move into the new place in Yokohama this weekend, but I'm not sure about my work schedule yet. This hour long commute is killing me: I leave at 7:30AM, and don't get back until around 8PM.

Classes are gong OK, but I am substituting for someone else's classes right now, so I keep having to ask where they left off last time, was there any homework I should check, etc. And on top of that, I can't always find the materials listed in the lesson plan (if there is one), etc.

In the mornings I'm with the regular students which is pretty nice, but the afternoons are the tricky part because it is different students with different abilities every time learning different materials.

Basically, I'm getting by, but I think things will get better once I get used to teaching here and once I move.

Cheers,

Changes

hey all,

I was able to check out the guest house near my new job after work yesterday. While talking to the teacher I'm replacing, I learned that if I move in there, I'll actually be moving into his old building.

The place seemed nice enough. To be honest, it is a little old, and a little dirty. But it will be temporary. That is the point of "guest houses:" they are places that you only have to put up with for a certain period of time. And I'm hoping that my period of time will be up next March.

The room does boast several benefits. First, it is larger than my current room. It has a massive 2 layer closet, which will probably be taken up by my suitcase, tent, sleeping bag, climbing gear, and assorted goodies. It has its own refrigerator: a model similar to the one I had in college with an real freezer compartment, and not just the little ineffective icebox thingy. And since the teacher I'm replacing lived there, it is close to my job. Probably about 30 minutes by walking, and he claims 10 minutes by bike, but that seems like taking a scenic route at a leisurely pace.

I'm going through reserving it, and planning my move for the weeks ahead.

However, the agent from the guest house in Shinkawasaki that I looked at earlier has been a little too persistent in trying to get me to move into one of his company's buildings. I keep telling him that I've been looking at a place which has a larger room than the ones he's showing me, is closer than any of the buildings he's suggested, and is cheaper as well. But he can't take the hint.

Anyway, today was supposed to be part of an outdoor rock climbing trip, but the weather has interfered and instead of a two day trip, it has been reduced to a day trip instead. We're heading out bright and early tomorrow morning and going to one of our favorite spots: Makuyama Park in Yugawara.

Some good news is that Michi and I went indoor rock climbing briefly today to make sure my shoulder was up to it, and I think I should be fine. I've got a little bit of soreness, but nothing like the shooting/jolting pain when I injured it swimming.

Cheers,

British English, Finally Over

hey all,

I've finally said good bye to all of my schools. As much as I didn't like a few of the teachers, or teaching some of the rude or loud classes, for the most part the students and teachers were really good and fun working with. So I've been feeling a bit down the last few days saying good bye to all of them.

Something that has been bugging me as an English teacher is that British people are also allowed to teach English. They often get higher pay in fact, as there are some schools which only specialize in British English. But there are a lot of things just wrong with British English. For example, the headline here. They do this with "committee" and "government," as well: treat a morphologically, semantically, and syntactically singular noun as a plural, which changes the conjugation on the verb.

And of course, they say things like "I'm going to go to hospital." I try to look at this as an extension of "go to work" and "go to school" and even stranger "go home" (No preposition and no determiner!!?!). But still, it seems oddball.

No rest for the weary.

Cheers,

Almost Over/Beginning

hey all,

I'm in the process of saying good bye to my schools. Yesterday I said good bye to my least favorite school, today I said good bye to the school with the high tech which usually lets me go early, and tomorrow I say good bye to my second favorite school.

Saturday I go in to my new job and do more observing, training, and practicing. After that, I have an appointment to check out a guest house within walking distance of the school.

Sunday and Monday are rock climbing, and then Tuesday through Saturday I go back to my new school.

Something random I ran across is the picture below. It is a keyboard for typing Japanese developed by Google. Apparently, the way you type is like playing the drums, and there are also pedals which you can't see in the picture below.

Cheers,

Belated

hey all,

Above is a belated video from my Golden week camping/climbing trip (early May 2010).

More Ughishness

hey all,

I got back a while ago from checking out the guesthouse in Shinkawasaki, and it seemed really nice. The area seemed OK, but there weren't really any stores or anything: no big shopping complexes by the station like I've come to expect in most Japanese cities. The building itself was pretty good: clean, well-maintained, new, and the people seemed pretty friendly.

I decided I'd sign an application for them, but they called later today saying that I hadn't passed their application process, but they'd still like to give me the room, as long as I'd pay double the deposit. Well, the building is nice, but it isn't that nice, and especially given that there were no stores around, it doesn't seem like it is worth it. Even with their promises the I'll get the money back when I move out. I don't really care. I'm not handing over that much money to even a reputable company like that housing firm.

So, I started up the process of looking again, and I've come up with at least one place that is closer to my job, and might offer more in the way of stores, etc. The rent is also cheaper, but we'll see how things go.

More actual good news is that my arm is almost back to normal. I'm still getting some twinges of pain every now and then, but the pain and the grinding have greatly lessened. I decided I'd see what my rock climbing training book had to say about shoulder injuries, and I've been doing several reps of two simple exercises everyday. Combined with the shot I received, it seems like I should be back to rock climbing soon. The ugh part here is that the exercises look unfortunately like you're practicing for seppuku. Yes, the ritual slitting open of one's belly following a disgrace.

Cheers,

Better

hey all,

So today was a much better day than yesterday. I stayed with the class that I taught the first time I came in to demo teach, not the little hellions that I had yesterday.

The class went really smoothly, for the most part, and I also brought a lunch today since I was expecting to be there for a long time. They actually let me go early, which was excellent, but I do have to come back in next Saturday.

And then, of course, the Monday after that I start teaching for real.

I've got my last five days of work at my old company, and I'm in a little quandary as to how to pay for my last school lunches. As far as I know, my schools don't know that I'm leaving, and my company has asked me not to tell them. (My guess is that they want to find a replacement first, and then inform the schools, but still. If they can't find one, then they still have to explain at some point that I've quit.) But I normally pay for school lunches at the end of the month. So, how do I insist on paying for one or two days worth of school lunch before the end of the month, without cluing them in that I'm leaving?

One piece of random news I ran across is about squatters in Amsterdam. This is been legal for many, many years, but apparently a new law has made it illegal. In my own experience, even when I was living in Amsterdam two years ago, the Dutch police still evicted squatters from several buildings, despite it being legal to squat. So what gives? Now that it is illegal to squat will the police stop evicting people? The Dutch have an infamously negative attitude towards their police. I wonder what will happen now that the police have to evict people from their homes. There's already been news of riots in Amsterdam.

One last bit of commentary. Now that I'm commuting a pretty decent distance to work (from Eastern Tokyo down to central Yokohama), I get to read the announcements on the train LED boards as I ride. It seems like everyday, there is some train that is delayed because of 人事故 or "human accident," the euphemism for someone jumping in front of a train. I know I've mentioned it before: Japan has half the population of the US, but the same number of people commit suicide in each country, i.e., the suicide rate in Japan is double that of the US. When I've spoken with one of my Taiwanese housemates, he has also mentioned that Taiwan has a very high suicide rate. Recently, even the Prime Minister of Japan (Mr. Kan) has announced his intention to create a government group to look into the problem. Aside from costing the country a lot in terms of human life, the economy, etc, it isn't really something you want your country to be famous for. "Yeah, more people kill themselves per capita than in any other post-industrial country in the world."

Cheers,

Ugh

hey all,

What a brutal and grueling day. The last time I went into the school, I came in expecting to teach. But this time, I came in expecting to talk about what I'd be teaching the week after next, and ended up teaching from 9:30 until 19:00. "I'd like you to come in and talk about your teaching schedule" doesn't really send the message or have the meaning of "You'll be teaching for the better part of 10 hours today."

Despite the mis-communication, things went OK. At least, the first several hours were grueling, because they were spent trying to teach the youngest regular students: from 2 to 3 years old. But after the regular classes finished, I got to eat lunch and prepare for 3 rounds of private lessons, all of which went pretty decently.

The major ugh part is that I'll be going back tomorrow, even though I promised to meet Michi. I might still be able to meet her, but it looks to be another relatively full day. I really need to get this school's teaching style down, as I only have a short time before I have to teach classes by myself.

It's is already a bit late and I'm going to eat dinner.

Cheers,

More News of the World

hey all,

Just some more quasi-random updates. I have 6 more days with my current company, and as far as I know, they have not informed my schools of my imminent departure yet, presumably because they haven't found a replacement.

It has been a bit difficult to care too much about the more unruly classes, because I'll only see them maybe one or two more times.

Friday I'm going in to my new company to talk about my teaching schedule for the up-coming weeks, instead of going to check out a new guest house like I thought I was originally. That has been moved to Sunday, leaving Saturday free.

The weather here has been rather eerie, to say the least. That record breaking hot summer, and now it has been rather cold and dreary for several weeks. The average has been 10C cooler than just two weeks ago; that's 18F degrees. That's like it being an average of 86F, and then the next day the average is 68F, and stays 68F for two weeks.

That's all for now.
Cheers

Another Quick Note

hey all,

Just another quick note here. The anniversary went really well. I got a cortisol shot from the doctors, who having heard my story about there being no problem with my x-rays last time and my arm still not back to normal despite not going rock climbing, not going swimming, not doing push-ups, pull-ups, or anything else for the last month; decided that it was probably tendinitis. It still hurts a little, but I think it should get be getting better. There's a lot less pain when I move my arm now, but there is still some soreness and it still feels like two rocks grinding against each other when I lower my arm from above my head.

Anyway, for dinner we came to my place and made lentil soup, karage (Japanese version of KFC), and apple crumble. After that we watched Avatar, which was pretty good. I don't know if it justifies the millions of dollars that it made, but it was fun.

Today was more house shopping, with lots of surfing the web, calling offices, and sending emails. We also went to a cool burger shop called Brozer's in Nihonbashi, which was expensive but quite tasty.

I've got four days of work this week, but on Friday I'm heading out to look at a guest house. Next week will be my last week of work for my current company. They still haven't told my schools, and have asked me not to tell them yet. I feel a little bad about that, but I've been working hard and have asked for higher pay, or advancement opportunities, and my company just asked me to wait. My schools can be fun to work at, but I'm really more of a nuisance than anything else for them, as my being there disrupts the normal schedule.

That's all for now.

Cheers,

Day Off, Housing

hey all,

Just a quick note. I had the day off today, and spent a small chunk of it helping Michi buy and install 1GB of RAM for her laptop, which was previously painfully slow. Now, it is almost tolerable. We also watched Shallow Hal, which for some reason she owns on VHS.

I've also been looking for housing, and as usual, because I talk about this kind of thing to most of the people I know here in Japan, I got some good advice on apartment hunting.

In other news, Saturday is Michi and I's 1 year anniversary. We're planning on doing that most romantic of all things, going to the hospital so she can check up with some of her doctors, and I'm also making an appointment because my arm is still not normal. After that, however, we're planning on cooking a meal at my place and watching Avatar.

Cheers,

Oze

hey all,

So yesterday I got back from my trip to Oze. I tried to make it an Outdoor Club trip, but there were snags. About 3 other people were interested, but only one actually emailed; the rest replied on the outdoor club website. In my opinion, the new club website is very poorly designed and I avoid it like the plague, so I wasn't aware that other people were even interested until pretty late.

In any case, Michi and I were definitely going to go, and as it happened the other people either lost interest or canceled at the last second.

Although several places seem to say that Oze is only 2 hours from Tokyo, that might be if you have your own private helicopter. For the rest of us, it means 2 hours by train (one of those hours by the shinkansen or "bullet train;" otherwise you need 3 hours), and a little over 2 hours by bus.

So why would we want to go to all that trouble? Well, Oze is one of the largest marshes in Japan, which makes the area a lot like Michigan, except with mountains.

Hiuchigatake, as seen across from Lake Oze. Day 1

Day 1.

Yours truly. Day 1

Lake Oze as seen from top of Hiuchigatake.

Red circle is our starting point for Day 2. Red trail shows our hiking path. Day 2

The wooden walkways laid out through the center of the marsh. Day 3.

We started from Oshimizu and finished at Hatomachitoge.

Black line shows hiking route. Red dots show our camp sites.

I'd really like to give a detailed itinerary, except that it is already 21:00 over here and I have work tomorrow. I'll just leave it at the following:

• Day 1: Get up at 6:00. Leave Tokyo around 7:00. Arrive at Numata train station around 9:00. Take incredibly slow bus from Numata to Oshimizu. Arrive around 11:30. Walk on really boring path for almost 3 hours. Arrive at campsite next to Lake Oze. Take hot shower and eat instant ramen.
• Day 2: De-camp and hike next to Lake Oze for an hour. Hide heavy luggage in the trees before hiking up Hiuchigatake, a 2356m mountain. Hike down the mountain, pick up luggage, and hike several more hours to arrive at second camp site. Eat more instant ramen, and take another hot shower.
• Day 3: It starts to rain before we can even eat breakfast or break the tent down, so we have to do everything in the rain and are already soaked before we begin hiking. My backpack is extra heavy thanks to the rain soaked tent inside. Really easy hiking this day, which is good because we are both tired and the rain keeps up from 4:00 until 12:00. We make record time, completing the course from our second camp site to Hatomachitoge more than an hour quicker than the map time estimate.

I saw almost no foreigners, which is kinda rare. We did visit somewhat off season, just like we visited Kyoto off season earlier this January. As I understand it, those wooden walkways get jam packed with people and are a real pain to be on during the busy times. You get several bus loads of 70 year olds who walk really slowly, stop to take pictures every few seconds, and keep up a lot of random chatter and you can imagine how bad the situation could be. You can't pass them either, because although it looks like regular ground, they have those planks for a reason: it really is a marsh, and you don't want to step in the water.

Cheers,

Turning Japanese

hey all,

I found myself explaining a particular section of Michigan highway to another Michigander, and when I looked at my hands, I realized that the traffic directions were reversed, as if we drove on the left side of the road (like they do here).

And now I have to resist correcting myself in Japanese when I have a slip of the tongue when speaking to someone who isn't Japanese.

I'll be doing a post about the Oze trip coming soon: I've just copied 100+ pictures to my computer, and haven't even sorted out the keepers from the trash.

Cheers,

House Hunting

hey all,

I'm just thinking right now how much I hate shopping in general, and now I'm shopping for a place to live that a) will be a nice place to live for a few months b) won't cost me a fortune in commuting and c) will be available when I need to move there.

It seems that these conditions are rare. One of my friends recommended company X, but when I went to their website, they advertised themselves as being amazing because instead of the usual 2 month's rent non-refundable bribe to the landlord, they only charged 1 month's worth of rent. No thanks. I appreciate honesty when someone is trying to screw you over, but that doesn't mean I'm going to hand the person the lubricant.

I still can't believe the idiotic rent system here in Japan, but there you have it.

Cheers,

Story of Last Friday

hey all,

I thought I'd share the story of last Friday, because I think it is a little funny.

I came home from work to find a delivery attempt notice from the Japan Post. After fumbling around with the automated voice system, I finally got them to arrange to deliver my package later that night.

That done, I started my laundry: a load of whites; mostly my work shirts and undershirts. As I was waiting for my package, I noticed the laundry machine had stopped, and was in fact giving some kind of error message. As it happened, one of my house mates was having a Japanese friend over, and he was kind enough to help out by calling the company and ask them to come and fix it that night.

I decided to make dinner and have a shower in the mean time, and while I was in the shower, of course my package arrived. Luckily, that same housemate picked it up for me. While waiting for the repair man, I looked up the details on how to transfer money from the US to Japan, and got a transfer underway. He showed up at 22:00, or 10PM, a half an hour late, and stayed until almost midnight.

While I was babysitting the repair guy, my US bank called to confirm the details of the transfer, but I was away from the phone.

But eventually, he fixed the washer, and I was able to finish my laundry. I even got my bank to call me back and was able to complete the transfer. Anyway, that was how I spent last Friday night; going from one happenstance to another.

Cheers,

Life Continues

hey all,

Life continues here in Japan. North Korea has not backed up its threats to nuke Japan; the Prime Minister Kan has beaten back a threat to his leadership; and thankfully the summer heat is starting to abate. According to the Japanese Meteorological Agency, we just had the hottest summer in 113 years. But other sources cite 1946. Personally, I have to doubt the 113 years claim a little. If for no other reason that Japan can't seem to keep track of things for that long.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, you need to check out what's been going on with the aging Japanese population. Japanese people are very proud that their country has such high longevity, but recently it has come to light that maybe as many as 240,000 people thought to be over 100 years old, are actually dead. This, despite the fact that the Japanese government is still paying retirement, and health insurance money for their corpses. That's right: their sons and/or daughters were defrauding the government out of money by not reporting the deaths of their parents, and continued to collect the welfare support. I can't imagine any other country just loosing track of 240,000 people, continuing to pay welfare for them for years and years (in some cases these people are believed to have died in the chaos after WWII, so over 70 years for some).

Anyway, that is the news of Japan. Classes continue, and I'm getting more and more fed up with them. Below is an example of how my schedule changes: this is typical of 2 out of my three schools. My favorite school almost never changes the schedule.

So I've been dealing with this for several months now, but there are so many stories that I'd love to get out there. Like my English classes being canceled because they were scheduled at the same time as that class's pool time. I'm a strong supporter of swimming: I was a lifeguard and swim teacher for 6 freaking years. But the pool isn't going anywhere; I have other classes to teach, other schools to go to, and what kind of message does that send to the students about English? Pool time is more important than English time?

Or about CD players. You might think that being in Japan, I am living in some kind of technological paradise (check out this Onion article, for instance). But I can't count the times when I've gone to a class room and wasted like 10 minutes waiting for a CD player. Oh, they have CD players in the classroom, but a lot of them don't work. Or the buttons don't do quite what they're supposed to, as even the Japanese teachers can't figure out what to do with them. I've had classes where they will literally bring in 3 or 4 CD players until we find one that works. Not only that, but I've seen them take out a brand new CD player from a box for class, and put the stupid thing back in the box after class. That's right: they want to keep using the CD players that don't work. We have like 60 in HD flat panel TV's  in every class room, but can't scrounge up a decent CD player.

Or when I've had a homeroom teacher fall asleep at their desk during one of my classes. I'm feeling less and less sorry about leaving this kind of teaching environment behind. Some of the teachers and some of the students were really fun to work with and teach to, but let's be serious.

I complained earlier about my commute, and the chatty school girls on the bus, but recently I've been sharing my morning bus ride with an autistic person who spends the whole trip slapping his checks rhythmically with both hands and groaning. Isn't that just a great warm up to a full day of teaching English with indifferent teachers to rowdy rude students in classrooms without decent air conditioning?

In two days, I will have been in Japan for 1.5 years, or something like 497 days. Also in a few days (this weekend, in fact) I plan on taking my first outdoor trip in quite some time. My shoulder is still bugging me a bit, but it is definitely slowly returning to normal. The plan is to go to Oze National Park, which is a highland marsh area that is pretty famous in Japan. Until a few years ago, it was part of Nikko National Park, which I've never been to, but that should give you some idea of where it is (near Nikko, which is to say, a few hours north of Tokyo).

There are several breathtaking mountains in the area, and the weather is looking decent but not incredible (maybe a little cloudy) for the three day weekend. As usual, there is much more to see there than can be seen in a single trip, especially since it offers different views and flora depending on what season you go there. I'm really looking forward to it.

For the next two days, I work at my school which always lets me leave early, so I'm going to try to bake some of my patented dried cherry oatmeal cookies. Yes, the ones where the girls in my high school lit class were jokingly offering to marry me, as long as I'd stay home all day and bake the suckers for them.

Aside from that, I need to put in some serious study time on Japanese. I've been using a site called smart.fm which one of my friend's recommended to me for studying Japanese, and it is quite nice. I still think I wouldn't pick up much from it if I wasn't here in Japan or if I hadn't taken actual Japanese classes in the US, but all the same, a nice piece of work. The thing that's been really nice is hearing my teachers or principals use words that I'm studying, or running across them in my Japanese translation of A Game of Thrones. I'm now on volume 4 out of 5 in that book, by the way.

Cheers, and don't let the bed bugs bite,

Wow

hey all,

So life in general has been a real roller coaster recently. To explain, I need to go back in time a little bit.

Last weekend, I thought Michi and I would be studying at the library on Sunday. Well, I didn't hear from her at all on Saturday, as my phone calls and emails weren't answered. I got an email Sunday morning saying she was going to Kamakura to write out by hand a Buddhist sutra. Why, exactly, I'm not really sure.

Anyway, that night she calls and at first everything is fine, but then this stream of really harsh stuff starts gushing from her mouth. Apparently, she had been talking with her parents just before, and her mother had expressed all sorts of worries about our future. After all, I don't have a really great job, my Japanese is not that good yet, and Michi is a bit older than me, so it isn't like she can really afford to waste time with any losers. So I got to hear all of that second hand, coming from someone I've grown to like and trust.

I didn't sleep really well that night, wasn't feeling very energetic at work on Monday, and basically announced that we were finished Tuesday afternoon.

Fast forward a few hours and I received a call from another company. I won't reveal their name here, but they asked me if I could come in sometime. As it happened, I had today off, and said I could come in.

Later that night, I was over at Michi's with the rapidly wavering intention of picking my stuff up (toothbrush, a green chef's apron made by my sisters), and suddenly I was crying, and she was saying she was sorry. And somehow things became OK again.

After we'd both settled down, I mentioned that I was going in to teach at this company, and she flipped out. She'd seen this company on Japanese TV, where it was listed as one of the three best English schools in Japan.

The next day, when I went into the school, I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but the building seemed very nice, and the staff seemed pretty friendly. But the kids were just amazing. One of the teachers had prepared a lesson about Earth's tectonic plates, which I taught to 4 classes, the youngest of which was 4 students about 2 years old. Overall, the students were polite, interested in learning, and pretty fun. Not only that, but most of the students could read, and all of them could speak at a ridiculously high level of English. Unlike education in Japan's public schools, everything was taken very seriously. Students who misbehaved were called out, or made to sit in the corner, which I've never seen happen in a public school. (Aside from talking to the students, there is basically almost nothing a public school teacher can do, and besides which, ALTs stand even lower on the authority totem poll than real teachers.)

For some reason, they offered me a job, and I've decided to accept. It means moving to Yokohama, which is about an hour away, but Michi has been thinking about moving somewhere around that area anyway. I've informed my current company of my intentions. The job doesn't start until the end of October, so I have a little time to look for guesthouses, and the president of the school seemed like she really wants her teachers to be happy (so her happy teachers can happily teach happy students, I guest). The starting pay is a bit higher than what I made last year full time, but I fully expect teaching there to be more challenging.

That's all for now.

Cheers,

Full Swing

hey all,

The school year is back in full swing. I taught at my least favorite school today, but classes actually went OK. The one class of 6th graders that usually gives me hell has been on some sort of angelic trip lately, so they've been listening attentively and seem to be enjoying classes.

When I taught a 4th grade class today, I had my Japanese teacher actually seem to fall asleep at his desk, instead of help me with the class, so that was a pretty bad class, but the next 4th grade class went really smooth.

I think I mentioned that the metal hinges on my satchel have been wearing away, but actually a totally different part of it broke on my way to school today, forcing me to carry the thing in my hands. I think I'm going to be really ghetto and repair it with some twine.

That's all for now.

Say It Ain't So

hey all,

I taught at one of my two favorite schools today, but they changed things up on me. Usually at my elementary schools, they either have a pre-existing lesson plan they want me to follow, or they let me basically do the lesson myself. As long as I cover the appropriate subject, nobody really cares too much.

Today, for three of my four classes, I almost did nothing. I came to class, did opening and closing greetings, and helped with pronunciation, helped keep the kids focused by directing their attention to the Japanese teacher, etc. But my actual teaching time (versus assistant teacher time) was limited to the one class. I've been told that this school is planning on increasing the number of English classes from about 30 to 45 next year, but they don't plan on bringing in foreign teachers for more days. I guess that would drive the budget too high, or something. So instead, these classes were something like practice sessions for the homeroom teachers to teach English.

Overall, the three classes lead by the Japanese teachers all went pretty smoothly. The only problems were poor English pronunciation, some incorrect grammar, and some times being unable to hear the teacher's voice; but really, I'm sure I do some really bad mispronunciations in Japanese, and sometimes talk to quickly or quietly for the students. My big problem is that I decided last year that I wanted to work at elementary schools because at junior high schools I didn't really do anything. And now this school has turned the tables and made me into an assistant again. I guess I should be happy, because I still get paid the same, but now have even less work to do, but still.

Anyway, I'm not sure what my plans are for the weekend. Michi is getting a tooth checked on at the dentist, so I might be staying home Saturday, and maybe we'll go to a library on Sunday again.

My shoulder seems like it is slowly getting better, but I still don't have confidence in doing a big rock climbing trip near the end of this month.

Cheers,

Return to Normalcy

hey all,

My first day back actually went very smoothly, especially considering that I was substituting at another teacher's school. I was able to get up on time, had breakfast (a raisin bagel left over from helping Michi's dad move that massive desk), and even found the school without once getting lost.

The only hitch in the whole thing was that on the lesson plan/schedule I had received from my company, I was supposed to teach a unit on numbers, but actually the ALT for that school had already finished it and the school didn't bother to tell me until I was half way through my first lesson. Oh well. A little annoying, and it kinda killed my flow that I had going, but overall it still went pretty well.

They even let me leave early after lessons were finished like my one favorite school does, so that was just an extra bonus.

I used the spare time to stop by a drug store and pick up something that had ibuprofen in it. I think it might actually be something like Midol, judging by the name, but it has 150mg of good stuff per pill, so whatever.

In other news, I watched Kick Ass and Daybreakers, two movies that came out recently, and I was impressed by both of them. I ran across reviews of them on The Escapist, and decided to check them out. I highly recommend both of them. Kick Ass is an over-the-top comedy superhero movie with great action sequences, a good story, and even good acting (which is hard to come by in certain other mainstream franchises I could name); and Daybreakers is a movie actually about the oil crisis, but masquerading as a gory, intelligent vampire flick.

I have tomorrow off, so that means surfing the web, and studying Japanese.

Cheers

System Shock

hey all,

A few days ago I was contacted by another recruiting/head hunting company, and they asked me to come in tomorrow and "see what they do." So, even though I'm not too interested, I figured that I have the day off, and I might as well give it a shot. I'd probably only futz around anyway.

My vacation is quickly, oh too quickly rushing to an end. I was offered one extra day as a substitute teacher this Wednesday, so I'll actually be getting up around 6:30 or so, instead of my recent 9:00 or 10:00, or even much later. I anticipate lots of resting this weekend, as my body reels from adjusting to the day starting so early.

I've officially entered my "hard-up" phase: I will not be paid again until October 25th, so I'm stretching my money out as much as I can. Things will be tight, but there you have it. With careful spending, I figure I still might have enough to do one rock climbing trip in late September, but that is contingent on my shoulder getting better.

Which, it seems like it is slowly, slowly, doing so. I've been dosing myself with ibuprofen, and I've looked up how you say ibuprofen in Japanese, so I'll be starting to look for some generic brands soon. Why my shoulder got like this is still something of a mystery, but my parents insist that it is probably just part of getting older. I don't have the job security, self-confidence, or even much of the wider experience which seem to be bulk of the benefits of aging, but I'm getting saddled with the slow recuperation times and tendency toward injury all the same.

Michi has been pretty supportive of resting, insisting on me resting when I still wanted to swim. But it is clear that she chaffs at me not being able to go rock climbing with her, whether because of my lack of funds or my shoulder injury. I even find myself worrying what I'd do if I couldn't return to rock climbing or swimming someday. (It has only been a month since the injury.) A touch melodramatic, but after watching that movie where the Fingerless Wonder Couple still achieve a First Ascent on a 3000m high mountain in Finland, it is hard not to.

Time to scrounge something for dinner.

Cheers,

Summer Vacation

hey all,

Summer vacation is almost over. I start up work again on my brother's birthday: September 3rd. Those jobs I was hoping for never really materialized. I can't say I've been scouring the internet for work, but I have put in a few applications. My search has somewhat narrowed and broadened at the same time. I've started looking for jobs in the neighboring prefecture of Kanagawa, but I've stopped applying for eikaiwa positions.

Given my background in high school with CAD (I won several prizes at the Michigan Industrial Fair), I've also been looking at CAD jobs, but a good number of these seem to require native or at least business level Japanese.

Last week, I was able to make a root beer cake in our house rice cooker, which turned out a lot better than the half batch I tried to make in our toaster oven.

The last couple days have been somewhat interesting. I met up with my girlfriend's father to help him move a table and some firewood up to their second house. The table really would have been easier to handle with 4 people, for instance, but we still managed to move it into the house by resting a lot. Yes, it was that heavy. When we first got it into the truck, my shoulder gave me a twinge, but actually moving it at their house seemed to be no problem. They also now have a 6 foot tall, 5 foot wide, and 2 foot deep pile of winter firewood, stacked by yours truly. Since Michi had to work, we had to get by with my Japanese and his English.

That's all for now.

Cheers,

Waterfalls

hey all,

The weekend ended up being pretty fun. Michi invited me up to the second house again, and we went hiking basically all day Saturday. During the hike, we got to check out a couple waterfalls.

The second one was very popular, but for some reason Michi was more impressed by the first waterfall. Personally, I agree with everyone else: the first water fall is very much a normal, average waterfall, while the second is interesting. It has a very rare horseshoe shape that is a little hard to see in the picture, but it basically wraps around about 270 degrees, so you can almost turn in a full circle and see the water streaming down.

Dinner for Saturday night was pretty amazing. We all went to a Chinese restaurant called Ken-chan (chan is a diminutive, usually added to the end of names for younger female girls, but can also be used for men). We ordered two Ken-chan sets to be split between the 4 of us. In one set, you get a huge steaming bowl of ramen, which by itself should be a meal, but added to it is a small bowl of rice, a plate of what looked and tasted like chow mein, and a plate of barbequed liver with veggies. And how much you pay for all this is just as surprising as the amount and the high quality of the food: about $10 per set.

Sunday we returned to the swelter of Tokyo. Michi and I stayed in and I helped her clean up her laptop a bit, and she went over some questions with me in my level 3 Japanese study book. When I came back to my place, I used one of my cans of root beer to make my first root beer float since coming to Japan.

Cheers,

News of the World

hey all,

Still got the vacation blahs. Too much free time and too little money is never a good combo.

As some of you know, I went to the doctor on Monday. It was a kinda sudden decision, so I didn't  have an appointment, and I also showed up late in the morning. Both of which resulted in me spending about 4 hours at the hospital.

They took what seemed like 10 different X-rays of my shoulder and elbow, and in the end the doctor said it was probably just muscle inflammation. Rest for a week, and hey, would you like these root beer scented patches with painkillers that are absorbed through the skin? Yes, they are actually root beer, or more specifically, wintergreen, scented. This is part of the reason why root beer is not popular in Japan: it smells like medicine to them.

So since Monday, I've been waking up, taking a shower, and slapping one of these on my shoulder, and spending the rest of the day doing not much at all. I read a little bit, go through a few pages in my level 3 Japanese study book, cook, and play video games.

Lately, I spend a lot of time getting to know my new house mate. He's from Alabama, and for some reason we share a lot of the same interests: cooking, games, movies, music, books, etc, so we've been cooking some lunches and dinners together (tonight was chili and margaritas) and chatting about random pieces of culture. He is listening to A Song of Ice and Fire as an audio book, so we usually spend a good bit of time going over where he's at in the series, and I dish out the latest piece of news from the author's blog, as I'm frothing at the mouth to read the next book, and also to see the HBO series, and basically can't shut up about it. I even rant to Michi a little about the books, and she's been reading snippets of my Japanese version, and is also looking forward to reading them in entirety once she finishes Holes.

Anyway, last weekend was pretty fun. Saturday, Michi and I made one of our usuals: healthy ramen. I opted to make tsukemen, which...Ok, Japanese people have a large number of types of noodles and several different ways of serving them. Ramen is typically thin noodles served with hot soup, and on a hot summer day that's the last thing I want to shovel into my piehole. So, tsukemen is the same setup, basically: thin noodles served with soup, but the noodles aren't in the soup. First they're cooled down, and then plated separately. You dunk them into the soup, which is still hot, but becomes cooled by the noodles as you eat it. Anyhoo. After that, I received a home made business-level Japanese quiz and got 70% right, and then we went to fireworks in the neighborhood where my elementary schools are. Pretty impressive, but I've yet to really figure out night time photo taking (all of them end up looking like crap), so I didn't even bother to try to photograph them.

If you are really anal retentive about food, Japan is not too bad a place to live, as long as you're anal retentive about Japanese food. As I've said before, Japan is mostly a country for Japanese people, and Japanese people like Japanese food. They don't seem to like Mexican food, for instance, as Mexican restaurants are hard to find, and good ones even rarer. As it happens, what Michi and I did on Sunday was go swimming (which further aggravated my shoulder), and discover by chance a really good Mexican restaurant. The prices were very decent, and the dishes all smelled, looked, and tasted amazing.

This coming weekend is anybody's guess. There was a trip that an outdoor club member organized that I wanted to do, but I also don't want to risk aggravating my shoulder anymore by carrying a heavy backpack around for 3 days. I think Michi might be going to her second house again, but I'm not sure if I'm being invited this time. If I did go, I wouldn't be able to do any chores for them (at least not ones that involved shoulder use), and I'm not sure how well that would fly. If I'm not invited, I might end up making root beer recipes all weekend. I bought 4 cans of root beer today, and I've been fantasizing about both root beer floats and root beer cup cakes.

Anyway, check out this for Japanese grocery shopping woes/info.